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MAIN APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF VISUAL THINKING // ΠΡΑΞΗMΑ. Journal of Visual Semiotics. 2021. Issue 4 (30). P. 256-272

Studies of visual thinking represent one of the trends expanding our views on the principles and mechanisms of human thinking. The present paper outlines three main approaches to the study of visual thinking. The psychological approach has been set apart based on the analysis of works by Rudolf Arnheim who demonstrated that visual thinking might be understood in terms of the psychology of thinking. Arnheim presented visual thinking as a mode of thinking that allows singling out the essential – common for the whole class – properties of the observed objects. The legitimacy and relevance of the psychological approach can be circumstantially proved by a large number of visual intuitions in philosophical epistemology. The neuroaesthetic approach has been singled out based on the analysis of works by Semir Zeki and V. S. Ramachandran. The founders of neuroaesthetics came to the conclusion that visual perception is not the reflection of an object by the eye, but an active brain activity aiming at completion or modelling of an object in accordance with certain laws such as the peak shift principle, the law of isolation, the law of symmetry, etc. Developing the ideas of neuroaesthetics, we can note that these laws of visual perception are suitable for describing the procedures of abstraction and idealization. A broader interpretation of the laws of visual perception and their application to intellectual procedures seem to be a promising perspective. The gnoseological approach has been examined on the example of the notion of “point of view”, which refers both to visual and abstract thinking. Johann Martin Chladenius used this notion in the methodology of historical knowledge, treating the latter as a vision of the past under a certain angle. Another way of developing the “point of view” is presented in Frank Ankersmit’s conception. Being a representative of the narrative philosophy of history, Ankersmit interprets the “point of view” as a narrative substance which allows integrating separate utterances into a single historical narrative. The notion of “point of view” demonstrates that historical knowledge is treated as a certain vision of the past and that historical research is interpreted in terms of visual thinking. All the three mentioned approaches point out a strong link between the visual and the abstract and thus open up a particular perspective on the study of human thinking, which may, for instance, be of interest in the study of artificial intelligence.

Keywords: visual thinking, neuroaesthetics, “point of view”, Rudolf Arnheim, V. S. Ramachandran, Semir Zeki, Frank Ankersmit